Deep Forest - Deep Forest (CD)

All Music Guide

Sampled Baka Pygmy voices flit across a synthesized environment like firefly blips from a video game or disembodied cartoon characters, but the crazy quilt cultural graft is less reminiscent of the giddy but ultimately depressing corporate merger of Bulgarian vocals and disco rhythms on Le Mystère's similarly assembled From Bulgaria with Love than it recalls the inestimable charms of Holger Czukay's blend of Arabic vocals and studio-recorded tracks on 1977's "Persian Love." Extraordinary vocals take primacy over workmanlike beats and textures, and the electronics verge toward moodiness instead of force-fitting the buoyancy of the vocals to new age tinkles. But the real genius is a witty manipulation of samples that ranges from the organic to the absurd.

- Bob Tarte, All Music Guide